An Economic plan based on hope? Maybe an orchestrated hope only campaign for 2010?

Since the start of the year, I observed the repetitive use of the word “hope” within articles and headlines regarding the economy. Via a Google search, the phrase “economic plan hope U.S” produced 396,000,000 hits during the period 1/1/2010 through 1/17/2010. That truly reflects a lot of hope during a 17 day period. The total number of hits using the same search phrase for all of 2009 produced 592,000,000 hits.

The United States economic plan is hitting on a lot more hope in 2010 considering we have achieved 67% of 2009 “hope hits” in the first 17 days of the year.

By definition, hope includes believe, expect, rely, anticipate, to expect and desire, to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment and of course, wish and dream.

Hoping for nice weather, an early spring, someone changing their mind and your team winning the Super Bowl suggest numerous conditions warranting hope are clearly out of one’s control. Grandpa is not seeking to initiate an emotional debate on the virtues of “hope”, as one could surely create sound arguments for suitable usage of hope, hopeful, hoping, hopefully and hoped for.

Hoping banks will lend, hoping employers will hire, hopeful that healthcare/financial reform will be passed and hoped for better home modification numbers are not the same as hoping it does not rain during the family barbeque. Our elected officials act as though they still expect a visit from the tooth fairy.

When Nancy Pelosi was asked this past Thursday about the status of the healthcare bill, she stated that, “reaching a deal by Friday would be our hope”. On her return trip to Washington D.C. on Monday she commented, “I am returning to Washington with a message of hope about the future of the U.S. auto industry”.

11/6/2009, Christina Romer commented about the employment report. “Today’s employment report contains both signals of hope for recovery and painful evidence of continued labor market weakness”.

4/14/2009: Ben Bernanke “warned that any hope for a lasting recovery hinges on the government's success in stabilizing shaky financial markets and getting credit to flow more freely again”.

11/16/09: Ben Bernake speech at the Economic Club of NY.
“However, some important headwinds--in particular, constrained bank lending and a weak job market--likely will prevent the expansion from being as robust as we would hope”.

9/14/2005, Joe Biden in a Washington Post Editorial addressing the situation in Iraq: “But hope and stubbornness do not constitute a strategy”.

Benjamin Franklin: “He that lives on hope will die fasting”.

Enough of the happy, hoping talk from Washington, ACTION is required and your clock is ticking. For many of you, November is just around the corner!